Viles Disqualified in Bid to Regain Council Seat

An ousted City Council member who had planned to run for election in April has been disqualified because she filed incomplete nominating papers.

Letha Viles, a council member since 1987, collected 20 signatures on her nominating petition--the minimum required for candidacy--but one voter failed to provide an address, according to City Clerk Leanna Keltner.

Viles called the missing information an oversight, but she said she had been ambivalent about running on the April ballot anyway. “I think it’s a no-win situation here in Bell Gardens,” she said. “I don’t like the way the campaign is shaping up.”

Viles was one of four council members recalled last December in a sweeping rebuke of status quo politics in Bell Gardens. A special election is scheduled for March 10 to replace Viles and council members Allen Shelby, Douglas O’Leary and Robert Cunningham.

Shelby and O’Leary also are trying to regain their seats in the April 14 regular municipal election.

Viles’ political foes say they were not surprised when they heard that she had been dropped from the race.

“She (filed incomplete papers) on purpose,” said George T. Deitch, one of the candidates on the March ballot and a leader of the successful recall effort. “It was unrealistic for her to win, and she knew that.”

Viles said she turned in her papers on the last day allowable, and the error was not caught by the city clerk’s office in time to correct it.